Michael Stryker

Research Interests

Role of neural activity in brain development and plasticity, central visual system, and biomedical imaging

Research Summary

Our laboratory's major interest is the role of neural activity in the development of precise connections within the central nervous system. Nearly all of the work of the laboratory is on the visual system, and particularly on the developing visual cortex. In this structure, as is likely to be the case in many areas of the brain, the major excitatory inputs initially make topographically correct but functionally diffuse neuronal connections, which are rearranged during development to a state of high precision. The precision appears to result from activity-dependent mechanisms of neural plasticity. We have found that the formation of both major systems of visual cortical columns, for example, requires neural activity during a critical period in early life but does not require visual experience.

Current experimental work in the laboratory focuses on (a) understanding the functional organization and development of visual cortex in animals with highly developed vision and (b) understanding the cellular mechanisms of the form of activity-dependent neural plasticity that organizes cortical connections during development, using manipulations of visual experience, pharmacology, and genetically altered mice. Following such experimental perturbations of possible cellular mechanisms of plasticity, a variety of measurement techniques are employed in the laboratory to analyze their effects, including microelectrode recording in vivo and in vitro, measurements of optical and metabolic signals related to neural activity, and anatomical and neurochemical tracing of connections.

Selected Publications

Sharpee, T.O., Sugihara, H., Kurgansky, A.V., Rebrik, S.P., Stryker, M.P. and Miller, K.D. (2006) Adaptive neural filtering enhances information transmission in visual cortex. Nature 439: 936-942. (Supplementary Data)

Cang, J.C., Renteria, R.C., Kaneko, M.., Liu, X., Copenhagen, D.R. and Stryker, M.P. (2005) Development of precise maps in visual cortex requires patterned spontaneous activity in the retina. Neuron 48: 797-809 (Supplementary Online Data)
Takao K. Hensch, T.K. and Stryker, M.P. (2004) Columnar Architecture Sculpted by GABA Circuits in Developing Cat Visual Cortex. Science 303: 1678-1681 (Supplementary Online Materials)
 

Kalatsky, V.A., and Stryker, M.P. (2003) New paradigm for optical imaging: Temporally encoded maps of intrinsic signal. Neuron 38: 529-45

Taha, S., and Stryker, M.P. (2002) Rapid ocular dominance plasticity requires cortical but not geniculate protein synthesis. Neuron 34: 425-36

Frank, M.G., Issa, N.P., and Stryker, M.P. (2001) Sleep enhances plasticity in the developing visual cortex. Neuron 30: 275-87

Trachtenberg, J.T., Trepel, C., and Stryker, M.P. (2000) Rapid extragranular plasticity in the absence of thalamocortical plasticity in the developing primary visual cortex. Science 287: 2029-32